Illini lose starter for season to injury

[edburby]

Volleyball team loses starter to knee injury



By Lucas Deal Daily Illini
September 20, 2006

Champaign, IL (CSTV U-WIRE) -- Illinois sophomore defensive specialist Kristine Anderson will miss the remainder of the 2006 season after an MRI performed last week revealed a tear to her ACL in her right knee.

Anderson injured her knee while preparing for the GlaxoSmithKline Invitational at Huff Hall on Sept. 6 and has been inactive ever since.

"She injured the knee going after a ball in practice, so we had her take an MRI," Illini head coach Don Hardin said last Tuesday. "We weren't sure exactly what happened, but from what we knew we suspected an ACL tear."

Hardin's fears became a reality days later when the team received Anderson's test results, which showed the tear.

Anderson will have surgery in October to repair the injury and will begin rehabilitation later in the year.

The injury has forced the Illini to make several changes to their starting lineup and the Illini are 3-1 since.

The Illini have been off since defeating Dayton 3-1 last Tuesday, Sept. 12, and they will host Wisconsin in their Big Ten opener on Friday at Huff Hall.

A native of Clinton, IL. and a transfer from Parkland Community College, Anderson has appeared in seven matches this season and is eligible to apply for a medical redshirt. Hardin said he hopes Anderson is able to redshirt, but is not yet sure how the NCAA will rule on the situation.

"The alumni match counts (as a match), which gives us 31 total matches. She's allowed to play in only seven of them, which she did," Hardin said. "If she wants to use this year again she would be potentially eligible for the medical redshirt. It will be up to her on whether she wants to apply."

In 2004, Illinois senior Erin Virtue was not granted a fifth year of eligibility after a similar injury ended her season in non-conference play. Hardin hopes the Illini will not experience the same fate with Anderson.

[edburby]

Hardin seems to think the alumni match counts as an official match?

Is this true?

[Deleted]

How much you want to bet that it counts toward eligibility, but it does NOT count if, say, you have a player suspended for 3-6 matches.

Sometimes you have to wonder if people know why it is exactly they have a job.

[edburby]

Nice double-standard

[BearClause]

edburby said:

Hardin seems to think the alumni match counts as an official match?

Is this true?

No way.

(c) The injury or illness occurs when the student-athlete has not participated in more than two contests or dates of competition (whichever is applicable to that sport) or 20 percent (whichever number is greater) of the institution’s scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition in his or her sport. Only scheduled or completed competition (including exempted events but excluding scrimmages and exhibition contests identified as such in the legislation) against outside participants during the playing season that concludes with the NCAA championship, or, if so designated, during the official NCAA championship playing season in that sport (e.g., spring baseball, fall soccer), shall be countable under this limitation in calculating both the number of contests or dates of competition in which the student athlete has participated and the number of scheduled or completed contests or dates of competition during that season in the sport. (Revised: 1/10/92, 1/14/97 effective 8/1/97, 4/26/01 effective 8/1/01, 3/10/04, 5/11/05, 8/4/05)

An exempted event would be one that doesn't count towards the "28 days of competition" rule, such as playing a team in Hawaii or Alaska. An alumni match is clearly an exhibition.

[kolohekeiki]

seriously what is up with all these players tearing their ACL's...is it jus me or has there been a lot recently...i don't ever remember hearing about these much girls tearing their ACLs

[fightingminime]

kolohekeiki said:

seriously what is up with all these players tearing their ACL's...is it jus me or has there been a lot recently...i don't ever remember hearing about these much girls tearing their ACLs

I blame Nike Shox.

[Gorf]

My guess is that "what's up" may depend heavily on how the injuries happened.

If the players landed on someone's foot / feet, a piece of equipment, trying to close a block at the last second and landing awkwardly on one leg, were going after a ball and ran into something that caused them to contort to make a play, or anything else that could be considered "bad luck" then those aren't injuries that stand out as being something out of the ordinary (in terms of happening in the past compared to now) even if they appear to be happening more often now.

I guess, you could perhaps say that the number of athletic players attempting to make more aggressive plays could lead to more injuries along the lines of ACL tears.


Could some of the others be related to technique training, incomplete weight training, or other such things?

I know when I was trying to study some of that stuff a while back one of the things I read regarding knee and low back injuries was related to over strengthening the quads compared to the hamstrings. For a typical non-athlethe their hamstrings are reasonable being 40% the strenght of their quads. For athletes (especially those in sports that require a lot of jumping and landing) the hamstrings ought to be 80% (or more) the strength of their quads. Stronger quads are one of the things that increase ones vertical and hamstrings are in part what help absorb the impact of landing so jumping higher withouth being able to absorb as much of the impact can lead to some increase in knee injuries.


Who knows for sure though - likewoah likewench may be correct that the entire problem is caused by Nike Shox.

[foreignball]

kolohekeiki said:

seriously what is up with all these players tearing their ACL's...is it jus me or has there been a lot recently...i don't ever remember hearing about these much girls tearing their ACLs

This is true – the number of different joint injuries has grown up tremendously in both women and men sports (not only in vball) in the last few years. Believe it or not, some researches say the reason is …. the bigger muscles that today’s athletes have compared to their predecessors from the near past. Muscles = more power + speed but also equal to higher body mass and very often the joints can’t hold up the bigger load.

I remember an interview with G Vujevich (SCH NT player, who is 33/34 now and still playing). One of the questions was how he had succeeded in having such a long career without any significant injuries. Among some other things he listed the fact that he always kept his body weight 5-6 lbs below to what was expected for a man with his size, thus reducing the load on his knees and ankles.